Beijing saw its 246th blue sky in 2007, narrowly fulfilling its annual target of 245 days of blue skies. (For the record that leaves, say, London for dead and is not that far from Sydney.)

Beijing’s air quality has shown steady improvement for nine straight years. Last year, Beijing had 241 ‘blue sky’ days.

As the Olympic Games near, Beijing has intensified its efforts to curb air pollution. The city planned to have 245 days with fairly good air quality in 2007, or two thirds of the total days.

Statistics show that although the number of ‘blue-sky’ days did not increase dramatically, there were also fewer extremely bad air days. Beijing recorded only three heavily-polluted days this year, lasyt year there were 13.

The capital launched a drive called ‘Defending the Blue Sky’ in 1998, when it only had 100 days of fairly good air quality.

The Olympic host city aims to have 70% of the days in 2008 up to the standard. Which means at least 11 more blue sky days.

Beijing has been working to reduce pollution and improve the air quality to ensure a ‘Green Olympics.’

For example, the municipal government cut public transport fares in an attempt to lure local residents out of their private cars. The city has also converted 18,000 outdated coal-fired boilers and installed electrical heaters in 20,000 detached houses, replacing coal-heated devices.

Beijing is also considering traffic controls during the Olympics, in which drivers with even-and odd-numbered license plates, except taxis, buses and emergency vehicles, would only be able to drive on alternate days.

During a test of this proposal conducted from August 17-20, about 1.3 million cars were taken off the city roads each day and the amount of pollutants discharged was cut by 5,815.2 tons, according to a report by the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. It is not known why this plainly beneficial rule has yet been brought into effect.
Source: China View

Beijing is confident it will be able to stage an Olympic Games in a comfortable environment, said the Games organizers in Beijing.

During a video meeting (how times change) with the International Olympic Committee, Liu Qi, president of BOCOGsaid the environment kept improving, which filled the organizers with confidence of holding a Games with good air quality.

Liu Qi said, ‘Until Nov. 22, Beijing had 226 days of good air quality (air quality level II or better) this year, nine days more than the same period last year.

‘Take August as example, we had 28 days of good air quality, including two days of level I air quality and 26 days of level II.’ He added that the level of sulfur dioxide and inhalant particulate matter in the air also dropped to a new low. The illustration is a genuine one of blue skies in Beijing.

Beijing has spent RMB120 billion between 1998 and 2006, more than 3% of its GDP, on environmental protection.

The Chinese capital has urged citizens to take public transportation instead of private cars by reducing ticket prices and building subway lines as vehicle exhaust emissions became a major source of the city’s pollution.

The city has also limited the use of small coal-burning stoves and urged natural gas as the clean energy alternative.
Source: English.eastday.com

In a wonderful example of national co-operation several provinces near Beijing are going all out to help ensure blue skies for the host city of next summer’s Olympic Games.

The local governments of Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi provinces, Tianjin Municipality and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have worked out measures to improve air quality for the Olympic Games.

The provincial government of coal-rich Shanxi published its measures last week, ordering that all desulfurization projects at major coal-fired power plants be completed before July 1 next year.

Businesses in heavily-polluting industries — power, iron and steel, chemical and concrete — will have to cut production or even close if they fail to meet the emission standards during the games. In addition, all vehicles traveling to Beijing from Shanxi must comply with Europe II emission standards from July 25 to Sept. 20, 2008.

Similar moves will also be taken in Shandong, which discharged 1.96 million tons of sulfur dioxide last year, the most among the mainland’s 31 provincial-level regions.

The Laicheng Power Plant of Huadian Power in Shandong’s Laiwu City began a desulfurization project on two 300,000-kw generation units in late October with an investment of RMB140 million (US$18.9 million). Originally, the project was scheduled for completion in 2009.

Environmental authorities in Hebei, which surrounds Beijing and Tianjin, have pledged to spend about RMB21 billion on anti-pollution projects and environmental monitoring stations.
Source: People’s Daily Online

Beijing’s contingency plans to battle pollution for the 2008 Olympics are based on extensive scientific study and will prove effective in providing clean air for the Games, a senior adviser to the organisers said.

Dr Sarah Liao, a scientist and former minister in the Hong Kong government, is also convinced the environmental commitments she helped draw up for the host city bid in 2001 will result in a lasting legacy for the whole of China.

Dr Liao said, ‘It’s not just something you pull out of your hat. This list was constructed through very extensive scientific study, they have asked Tsinghua and Peking Universities to model on various meteorological scenarios.

‘They have gone through an extensive study. They are getting the data from the trials and going back to validate the models. We will fulfill our original bid commitment, namely to meet Chinese and pre-2005 World Health Organisation standards on air quality.’

Beijing has invested RMB120 billion ($16.22 billion) in environmental programs and Paolo Revellino, author of a United Nations Environmental Program report, has said he thought the work Beijing had done in bridging the gap to developed nations was ‘astounding’.

Dr Sarah Liao said, ‘In a nutshell there has been great improvement in air, water, waste, ozone depleting substances and the greening of Beijing. They have set things in track that will never turn back.’

Aspects that pleased Dr Liao most were that Beijing had leapfrogged to much higher standards in areas such as vehicle emissions and that environmental considerations now had to be taken into account in any new projects in the city. This will be part of the legacy of the Games.
Source: Guardian

Beijing has set up new automatic weather stations (AWS) around local sports venues, in order to provide accurate weather forecasts for the 2008 Olympic Games, the Beijing News has reported.

Currently, the city has 176 AWSs, one for every five square kilometers in urban areas and one for every 10 or 15 sq km in the suburbs.

A spokesman for the municipal meteorological bureau said the bureau plans to build up to 15 AWSs for Olympic sites, of which 12 have been completed. The completed stations are in major Olympic venues like Olympic National Park, Shunyi Olympic Aquatic Park, Chaoyang Park, Xiannongtan Stadium, Fengtai Sport Center, Beijing Country Equestrian Park, and the Tennis Center of Olympic National Park.

He said, ‘AWSs in Olympic sites have to meet special requirements such as the ability to measure visibility and total radiation and ultra-violet ray radiation. That is in addition to measuring temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind direction, wind force and precipitation.

‘These AWSs will collect meteorological information at the Olympic venues on a large scale and help local meteorological offices to provide more accurate and timely weather forecasts.’

Weather information will, in part, be processed through a newly purchased IBM System p575 supercomputer, seen in our picture. The System p575 is expected to provide ten times the computational power of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau’s current weather forecasting system.
Source: China Daily